ill make Connie laugh like anything!" he said.

2

To be a habitue of Brown's was to prove yourself a person of some means
and solid discrimination. At Brown's you could get cuts from the joint,
a porter-house steak, apple tart, and a good boiled pudding as nowhere
else in the world. You went in through the swinging doors an ordinary
and fallible human being, and you came out feeling you had been fed on
the very stuff which made the Empire. You were slightly stupefied, but
you were also superbly, magnificently unbeatable.

Mr. Brown was an Englishman. But he did not glory in the fact. It was,
as he had explained to Robert one night, his kindly, serious face glowing
in the reflection from the grill, a tragedy.

"To be born an Englishman and a cook--it's like being born a bird without
wings. You can't soar--not however hard you try--not above roasts and
boils. Take vegetables. An Englishman natur'lly boils. And it's no
good going against nature. You're a doctor--or going to be--and you know
that. You've got to do the best you can, but you can't do more. That's
my motto. But if I'd been born a Frenchman---- Well it's no use
dreaming. If them potatoes are ready, Jim, so'm I."

Mr. Brown had taken a fancy to Robert Stonehouse from the moment that the
latter had challenged him on the very threshold of his kitchen and
explained, coolly and simply, his needs and his intentions. Mr. Brown
was frankly a Romantic, and Robert made up to him for the souffles and
other culinary adventures which Fate had denied him. He liked to dream
himself into Robert's future.

"One of these days I'll be pointing you out to my special
customers--'Yes, sir, that's Sir Robert himself. Comes here every
Saturday night for old times' sake. Used to work here with me--waited
with his own hands, sir--for two square meals and ten per cent. of his
tips. You don't get young men like that these days--no, sir."

Robert accepted his prophetic vision gravely. It was what he meant to
happen, and it did not seem to him to be amusing.

Brown's was tucked away in a quiet West End side street, and there was
only one entrance. At six o'clock the tables were still empty, and
Robert walked through into the employees' dressing-room. He put on his
white jacket, slightly stained with iodoform, and a black apron which
concealed his unprofessional grey trousers, and went to work in the
pantry, laying out plates and dishes in proper order, af